From Navy Times, here:

A military judge cleared the way Wednesday for a member of the team that raided Osama bin Laden’s compound to testify in the trial of an Army private charged in a massive leak of U.S. secrets.

Col. Denise Lind ruled for the prosecution during a pretrial hearing for Pfc. Bradley Manning at Fort Meade, near Baltimore.

The government said the witness, presumably a Navy SEAL, collected digital evidence showing that an associate of bin Laden provided the al-Qaida leader with documents Manning has acknowledged sending to the WikiLeaks website. . . .

H/t PC

Recent reports of military members involved in shootings around the country.  Seems like we are hearing more about these.  Here an Army Staff Sergeant involved in recruiting a local Rockville girl shot and killed the student and himself.  Another Army NCO shot and killed a civilian employee at Ft. Knox last week, Army Times here (h/t MLM). Is there anything to be said for combat stress and these incidents?

And not recent and not related to my theme, but the trial of four Marines in the brutal killing of a fellow Marine and his wife at Camp Pendleton began in California yesterday, NY Daily News report here.  While the accused are innocent until proven guilty, the circumstantial evidence points to this just being a brutal, inhuman crime.

Here is an article from the LA Times on the 2011 Pineda case and the related death of a witness in the case:

Pineda, a seaman from Barstow, Calif., training as a Navy SEAL, spent three months in jail for sexual assault. Antonacci, a 22-year-old ordnance disposal trainee from Long Island, N.Y., was threatened with prosecution. The case didn’t go far: Antonacci’s body was found hanging in a closet, his nose bleeding, his face and back bruised. . . .

Pineda is living now in Arizona. An appeals court reversed his conviction in 2011, ruling that there was evidence the woman hadn’t told the truth and that Pineda might have thought she consented. The Navy declined to retry the case, and Pineda won an honorable discharge and back pay. Still, he said he wants the Navy to answer for what he and Antonacci went through.

 Our prior coverage here and NMCCA opinion here.  H/t KF

More from the San Antonio News-Ledger, here, on another court-martial for consensual sex with recruits and trainees at Lackland.  SSGT Romero pleaded guilty to consensual sex with technical school trainees and adultery.  He received 30 days hard labor and no BCD. Romero was diagnosed with PTSD and may now have the ability to medically retire and receive treatment.

What are your thoughts on DoD opposing a bill in Congress to award Purple Hearts to the victims of the Ft. Hood attack, see Dallas Morning News commentary here. I am with the author that if the decision is even partially tied to MAJ Hasan getting a fair trial, an argument that could use a little ‘splainin, why not just say we’ll decide later?

Second murder case against a Ft. Stewart soldier, coverage of charges preferred here:

A Georgia soldier accused of plotting attacks as leader of an anti-government militia group was charged with murder by the Army on Wednesday in the 2011 death of his pregnant wife.

Pvt. Isaac Aguigui of Cashmere,Wash.,will face a military hearing to determine if a court-martial should try him in the death of his wife,Army Sgt. Deirdre Aguigui,said Fort Stewart officials in southeast Georgia. The Army also charged Aguigui with causing the death of an unborn child,a boy,when his wife died in July 2011. Military authorities spent nearly two years investigating,but have not released any details about the killing.

“Every victim deserves to have their case prosecuted. In this case it took some time,” said Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson.

Less than five months after his wife’s death,Aguigui and three fellow Fort Stewart soldiers were charged by civilian authorities in the December 2011 shooting deaths of Michael Roark,a former member of their Army unit,and Roark’s 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York. Civilian prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Aguigui,saying he ordered the deaths to keep the couple from exposing the militia group.

Sgt. Rober Richards may be the third Marine to face charges of corpse desecration in Afghanistan, see story here, after an IO recommended an SPCM for the Sergeant.  The story also notes that video evidence potentially implicated Richards in other offenses, for example:

One of the additional videos shows Richards throwing a grenade over a 10-foot-high wall without positively identifying the enemy. In another video, Richards can be heard telling his Marines that “for the next five minutes, every military age male south is hostile.”

H/t GGH

BGEN Sinclair’s counsel requested separate trials for the charges he’s facing, reports the FayObs here:

Maj. Elizabeth Ramsey, one of Sinclair’s lawyers, argued for having one trial based only on the charges related to the female captain who accuses Sinclair of forcing her to perform oral sex. The woman and Sinclair admit to an adulterous relationship that stretched over several years.

The second trial would focus on the other charges, including allegations of misconduct with other women and fraud.

Prosecutors objected to the move, saying it would only give Sinclair a better chance at acquittal.

The military judge, Col. James Pohl, agreed. He said the jurors, all general officers, would be smart enough to follow his instructions.

Talk about trimming the force, the AF has relieved an O-6 CO with a good record for failing his physical fitness test, according to this AF Times report here.

H/t GGH

Interesting NPR piece on the Invisible War’s Myla Haider here. 

The response to transparency and legality concerns with the US drone policy appears to be more symbolic than real, so says Eric Schmitt at the NYT here.

7 months confinement and a BCD in latest Lackland instructor case. This instructor had consensual sex with two recruits and lied to investigators according to the report out of San Antonio here.

[UPDATE]  I forgot to add yesterday’s news about the military judge, COL Tara Osborn, rejecting MAJ Nidal Hasan’s attempt to plead guilty . . . because one of the not so bright provisions of the [UCMJ] prohibits it. LA Times report here.  COL Osborn also appears to have ruled on several “standard” capital court-martial motions. [My apologies for earlier pinning all the blame for the SNAFU in capital pleas on the Executive Branch; Congress created the mess in UCMJ, Art. 45(b).]

Here’s a link to Michael Doyle’s article on congressiional consideration of whether to amend the UCMJ in the wake of Lieutenant General Franklin’s disapproval of the findings in United States v. Wilkerson.

Here is a link to a statement Frank Spinner’s released about yesterday’s hearings on sexual assault in the military and convening authority powers in light of the clemency granted to his client, LTC Wilkerson. H/t OFL.

Here’s a video of a report on the Today Show including an interview with Kimberly Hanks, the complaining witness in the Lt Col Wilkerson case.  A transcript of the story, reported by Michael Isikoff, is available here.

One of SecDef’s first actions is to order review of a two century old power of convening authorities to review court-martial findings, AF Times coverage here. 

While calling Manning’s providence inquiry “now famous” is a bit of giddy school-girlish enthusiasm, this Nation report links to audio from Manning’s plea inquiry.

Here’s a Balkinization post by Yale Law School Professor Gene Fidell on the congressional response to Lieutenant General Franklin disapproving the conviction in United States v. LTC Wilkerson.

Here’s a link to a piece by McClatchy’s Michael Doyle and Marisa Taylor on the response by various members of Congress to Lieutenant General Franklin’s disapproval of the convictions in Lieutenant Colonel Wilkerson’s case.  Tha article indicates that on Wednesday, “Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif.” will introduce legislation “which would strip away a commander’s ability to dismiss convictions.”

LTC Wilkerson is free but still not on the O-6 promotion list reports Stars and Stripes here.  The Secretary of the Air Force removed Wilkerson from the list in January and won’t put him back on the list unless the AFBCMR says he should. Amid calls for investigations of the CA for throwing out his conviction and reinstating him to fullVduty status, I’d have to think a promotion is . . . unlikely?

And from this month’s ABA Journal (okay, I am a week late) comes the story titled, “Meet the Man Who Would Save Guantanamo.”  Who is this man, here’s an excerpt:

For a moment, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins seems discomfited. That is not his nature. In the words of a reporter covering the revamped military commissions now trying accused terrorists in Guantanamo Bay: “Don’t play poker with the man. He has no tells.”

But Martins is visibly stung when told reporters gripe that his lengthy, detailed responses to their questions sometimes don’t contain the direct answers they seek. He winces, holding a squint as he mulls the criticism, his sinewy 6-foot-3 frame folded erectly onto a small couch by a coffee table at one end of his office in a nondescript commercial area of Northern Virginia. His response at first develops in the fashion that brings the complaint: “You have to give them the context. We’re not in the same place we were five years ago. So using the same narratives and storylines when you now have a different statute—Congress has weighed in, we’ve had the judiciary weigh in.”

Martins catches himself in midsentence, then continues in a softer voice that trails off in thought: “So. I probably do. I hope they don’t think I’m pedantic. …”

Transparency has been Martins’ mantra, a theme he returns to often since being assigned in September 2011 as chief prosecutor, the sixth in 10 years, for the controversial military commissions in Gitmo.

Do you think the ABA Journal is right?